BOU AVENUEChief Mountain
Years ago, I saw a painted advertisement for Police Outpost Provincial
Park at the Calgary International Airport. I knew very little about
this obscure park in southern Alberta, but I was struck by the artist's
rendering of a distinctively shaped mountain that seemingly stood
unrivalled in the middle of the prairie landscape. It wasn't until
much later that I realized that this was Chief Mountain which is located
in the northeast corner of Montana's Glacier National Park (US).
The mountain has a rich history which is well-described in J. Gordon
Edwards' A Climber's Guide To Glacier National Park. There
are a few easy climbing
routes to Chief Mountain's summit as well as numerous approaches to
the base of the mountain. The shortest approach via a road built by
the Humble Oil Company entails hiking across
Blackfeet Nation land which technically requires an access permit.

Linda
Breton and I initially planned on bagging Chief Mountain by ourselves
after she responded to my rather whimsical proposal in my
Mount Cleveland trip report. After much researching, e-mailing,
and discussions on the Rocky Mountain
Books WebForum, we would
eventually be joined by Bill Kerr, Bob Parr, Gary
Vandergrift, and James Yearous. Before the trip, Linda and Bill
both tried to find out where we could get the aforementioned permits, and
in the end, Bill settled on buying two rather expensive fishing licenses
(which include the land access permits) to be picked up in Cardston,
Alberta.

On 16 October 2005, Bob joined Linda and me at my place at 4:30 AM,
and we piled into my car and drove to Fort Macleod, Alberta to pick up
James and rendezvous with Bill and Gary. We then drove in two cars
(mine and Bill's) to the Husky gas station in Cardston where
Bill picked up his prepaid fishing licenses while Linda browsed the
station's soda pop section to find out the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero.
Our next stop in the journey was at the Carway-Peigan border crossing
(open 07:00-23:00 all year). Although Bill looked suspicious enough
to have his car briefly searched, we generally had no problems entering
Montana (only photo ID's were required). The sky began to lighten
as we neared Chief Mountain, and we were dismayed to find so much cloud
cover in the area. Raindrops were also pelting my windshield, but
more disturbing was the strong wind buffeting my car.

About 16 kilometres south of the border, we turned right onto
Chief Mountain Highway and drove for another 16 kilometres before turning
left onto the Humble Oil Company road (not signed but fairly obvious).
Except for a few rough spots, the road leading to the north side of Chief
Mountain was in surprisingly good shape.
A two-wheel drive car could probably make it as far as a large clearing
where a much rougher dirt track (four-wheel drive and good clearance
required) climbs the last few hundred metres to the trailhead on top of a
low ridge. Despite grumblings (mostly from me) about the cold
temperatures and the fierce wind, we all geared up and started hiking up
the trail by 8:31 AM.

After hiking through some scrubby forest and passing some small ponds
(a decidedly ugly area despite the natural features), we worked our way
up a moraine-like slope and crossed a large grassy meadow to a boulder
field near the base of Chief Mountain. Picking our way through the
boulder field was tedious enough, but the intensifying wind was starting
to hamper our progress as we rounded the west end of the mountain.
Here, the terrain is a hodgepodge of loose, rotten rubble and house-sized
boulders threatening to topple over much like seracs in an icefall.
There are also deep fissures here not unlike crevasses on a glacier which
require some care to negotiate. The gale force wind absolutely
pounded this end of the mountain making walking quite difficult at times.
We all lamented not bringing ski goggles along as snow and dust stung our
faces.

Thankfully, the wind abated somewhat once we got around to the
southwest slopes, but now we faced a lengthy grovel up treadmill scree.
A notch in the summit ridge is the key to reaching the top, but because
of the foreshortened view, we had some difficulty figuring out where this
notch was from below. The group became separated here with most of
the guys pushing forward to try and find the notch while Linda and I
struggled to keep up. I was higher up the slope than Linda when I
noticed the others traversing across the slope to the right below the
summit cliffs. I promptly angled up to follow the guys and
eventually found them huddled just below the notch for a break out of the
wind. I waited a short distance below them in hopes that Linda
would catch sight of me, and at one point, I saw her pop above a rock
band. I waved to her, but she then disappeared below the same rock
band. At this point, most of the others had continued up to the
summit ridge, but thinking that Linda was still on her way over to me, I
waited...and waited...

Suddenly, I saw Linda's unmistakable red jacket further down the
slope. She was descending. A little dumbfounded, I turned and
headed up to the notch. Despite a couple of moderately exposed
down-climbs, I had no real difficulties scrambling along the enjoyable
summit ridge. The wind wasn't even that bad up there. I soon
joined the rest of the guys at the summit at 12:47 PM.

With limited views and cool conditions, there was little point in
lingering at the summit, and we were all on our way down by 1:03 PM.
Our return trip was unremarkable except for an animal sighting that Bob
and I made in the boulder field on the north side of the mountain.
I initially detected some movement out of the corner of my eye, but when
I focused my attention, all I saw was rocks and shadows. Believing
that my mind was playing tricks on me, I asked Bob, who was nearby, if he
saw anything. Shortly after, we both saw a pure black shape about
the size of a large dog bounding away from us and disappearing under some
Krummholz. Bob thought it was either a marmot or an otter while I
thought it was a puma. When we rejoined Linda at the ponds and
described to her our close encounter, she made the astute observation
that the animal was possibly a wolverine.

We all made it back to the trailhead by 3:45 PM and were quite
relieved to be finally in our cars and out of that miserable wind.
At the border crossing, the Canadian customs agent gave me a slightly
harder time than his American counterpart when he asked me, and only me,
for proof of citizenship. I was a little put off that I was singled
out, but I must have looked pretty crazy with my tousled hair and
blood-shot eyes (from the wind and dust). Despite Bill's and Gary's
preference for beer and wings, we all settled on a rather bad Chinese
buffet dinner in Cardston before heading home.

Incidentally, Linda turned around before the summit because she "had
surpassed [her] suffering threshold". Given the crappy weather, I
could hardly argue against that, but I still feel bad that she didn't
make the summit. Hopefully, she will make a return trip and
complete the climb in more favourable conditions. Next year?